Android Malware Will Mine Bitcoin Using Your Phone

While there are many eager to hop on board the bitcoin bandwagon, banks and governments aren’t exactly too thrilled, especially since they are still trying to decide what exactly to do with it and how to best regulate it. That being said until they figure it out, bitcoin is still considered open game and there are many miners out there looking for it.

Unfortunately it looks like those miners could actually be mining for bitcoin on your Android smartphone, that is of course if you downloaded the malware. According to a recent post on the Lookout Security blog, it seems that there have been malware found on Google Play that uses your phone’s processing power to help mine for bitcoin.

The malware has been dubbed BadLepricon and was found hidden inside a seemingly innocuous wallpaper app. According to Meghan Kelly, a Lookout Security communications manager, “However, without alerting you in the terms of service, BadLepricon enters into an infinite loop where — every five seconds — it checks the battery level, connectivity, and whether the phone’s display was on.”

Kelly also warned that unless the user was made aware of the malware and did something to remove it, it has a probability that it could end up burning out your device. In fact the malware reportedly uses a feature called WakeLock which means that even if you were to lock your phone, it actually prevents the phone from going to sleep, meaning that it is still continuously using your phone’s processing power even when the display is off.

So if you have downloaded any wallpaper apps from Google Play, you might want to get yourself some kind of anti-virus app for your device and remove it, just to be safe.